Jamaica
News - Real Estate Sales (April 19, 2004)
Gov't selling
land housing police HQ
THE government is considering selling the
lands occupied by the police commissioner's office on Old Hope Road as well as
police property on Ruthven Road to the National Housing Trust and using the
proceeds to finance a modern police headquarters elsewhere in Kingston, national
security minister, Peter Phillips, confirmed last night.
"We are looking at options that would
allow us to build a modern police headquarters," Phillips stated. "But
we are still talking."
He confirmed that the suitor was the NHT, the
state's housing development and mortgage agency, whose chairman Kingsley Thomas
confirmed that the discussions have taken place.
"It is still very preliminary,"
Thomas said.
The NHT would like to develop middle-income
townhouses on the seven acres of land at 103 Old Hope Road where the police
headquarters is housed in a series of older wooden buildings which police
officials say are in serious disrepair. These townhouses, it is expected, would
be sold for between $4 million and $6 million.
On the four acres of land between 1c and 3a
Ruthven Road, the NHT proposes to develop an apartment complex with units
selling at about $2.5 million, which it believes would be attractive to young
professionals.
It is estimated that the market value of the
combined 11 acres of land would be in the region of $130 million, which it has
been proposed would go towards building the new headquarters on four-and-a-half
acres of land in the Swallowfield area, between Tom Redcam Avenue and Arthur
Wint Drive. This property now houses the police's transport and maintenance
department.
The Old Hope Road property is considered to be
prime real estate and although Thomas insisted that the proposals were still
preliminary, he said that would allow the NHT to reach out to middle class
contributors.
"We have to balance the portfolio,"
Thomas said. "It would be middle-class housing."
Thomas disputed that the present site of the
police headquarters carried social or historic significance which would put the
NHT on a collision course with the National Heritage Trust or other heritage
societies.
"We have done the work and there is no great
historic significance to the buildings," he said. "The place is
rotting down. You can't have the police headquarters in such conditions."
Senior police officials agree that the
existing environment is far from satisfactory and say that the dispersal of
several division and departments across the city impairs management.
"We need a headquarters designed for the
police force," said one senior officer. "This has been on the agenda
for a long time. The Old Hope Road offices are inadequate."
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